Arthuriana

A selection of Arthurian and related titles

Like many others of my generation I came across Arthur and his knights in those simplified retellings with loads of coloured illustrations. Soon, however, I could see a mismatch between the knights in shining armour and his supposed location in the immediate post-Roman period: how did Roman soldiers morph virtually overnight into paragons of chivalry? In pursuit of this and similar conundrums I studied history at A-level, attended lectures by Barry Cunliffe at uni, got involved in digs at South Cadbury — a hillfort claimed as the original of Camelot — then a nearby Roman villa, followed by a long-running excavation at an early medieval church site in Wales.* I also edited an amateur journal on and off for nearly forty years exploring Arthurian history, archaeology, fiction and popular culture: Pendragon, the Journal of the Pendragon Society.

As a result I have over the years reviewed quite a few Arthurian titles, several of which will be added to in this blog. These Arthurian books range from historical and archaeological studies to counterfactual narratives, from literary commentaries to modern fiction, from personages to places and things.

As of 2018, some of my articles for and contributions (other than book reviews) to Pendragon have started appearing on one of Calmgrove’s sister blogs, Pendragonry — at http://pendragonry.wordpress.com — where you can read and comment on assertions I make with a fine abandon.

This will be a good point to declare that I’m agnostic where ‘King Arthur’ is concerned. The conception of a Dark Age warlord that was prevalent and partly (but not universally) accepted in the sixties was one I subscribed to as a possibility then, but the more I study it (and I’ve been doing so for nearly 50 years) the more I’m inclined to suspect that the concept is a combination of historical fabrication, paucity of evidence and wishful thinking. That doesn’t make it any less fascinating as a process, which is my apology for continuing to pursue it!

I agree with your pithy summary! What makes me sad, and sometimes cross, is that the hunt for Arthur means that people who lived real lives in hazardous times are brushed aside when any objective analysis should make them ‘heroes’ or at least, influential figures, even though they have the audacity not to be Arthur.

It’s all too true. Especially so, as you’re all too aware, in the case of Cumbria, with its legacy from historical Rheged and all those celebrated names with their fragmented stories from the post-Roman period.

Thanks so much for this link to an thoughtful review, Lizzie. The following statement, that to “write about [Arthur … a Celtic Briton] in the Germanic or Anglo-Saxon verse style of later centuries — that is, in a style brought to Britain by precisely the people Arthur sought to destroy — can only have struck this eminent philologist as an uncomfortable linguistic and historical pastiche” (and presumably also a project that was misconceived), was one that had already struck me when I first saw notices of this. The other reviews I’ve seen have also been largely lukewarm, as with the earlier publication of another of Tolkien’s verse epics, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún.

I personally think we should be grateful to Christopher Tolkien for presenting his father’s unpublished work, especially with the copious notes and notations, but expectations that they will necessarily match the work JRR sanctioned for publication in his lifetime are misplaced; the fact that they were abandoned unfinished should be a clear indication that he wasn’t totally satisfied with them, and nor should we expect to be.

So, to answer your I’m sure not wholly rhetorical questions! An unfinished masterpiece? Unfinished, yes, masterpiece, no. A lucky break for LOTR fans? If you mean will it satisfy the hunger of LOTR readers wanting more of the same, I suppose that depends on their capacity to accept that there are no orcs or hobbits. For myself, I’m waiting till the paperback comes out.

By “lucky break”, I meant that it was a lucky thing (for fans) that JRRT dropped it and returned to Middle Earth. On a slightly related note: have you read Arthur Phillips’ The Tragedy of Arthur? It’s only tangentially Arthuriana, but there is the Shakespearean-esque-ish play about King Arthur that all the novel’s hullaballoo is about. Worth the price of admission, I think.

So sorry, Lizzie! I was doing one thing and thinking of another (see, men can multitask too! Only not very well in my case) and mistyped somebody else’s name for yours. Thanks for not minding!
Yes, I see what you meant by lucky break, now you point it out. Crystal clear if only I wasn’t multitasking…
I’ve seen fairly enthusiastic reviews of The Tragedy of Arthur and had it recommended as well, so can’t think why I haven’t chased it up yet. No excuse now not to, so thanks!

It might be late in the day to learn, but it is better to learn late than never and there I found myself looking up the word: agnostic
Thanks chuck, I think I might be quite agnostic myself now I come to think about it.
I aspire to live a natural and kinder life. So kings (including the mythical Arthur), queens (like our current hunting, shooting… cruel to wildlife, head of state) and most powerful people, just don’t interest me much at all, because they’re the ones separated from a natural and kinder life.

Yes, agnostic simply means not knowing enough about something or other — facts or evidence related to it — to give it credence. Arthur, king or not, means such a lot to certain people — as a symbol, as historical fact, as a figure they invest emotion in — that I’ve always felt his reality was worth investigating and, in more recent time, why people had a psychological need for such a figure.

Myself, I’m neither a royalist nor a believer but do see why so many have strong feelings one way or another about his existence and what he stands or even stood for.